


Embracing a New Ending

by DawnOfTomorrow



Series: A Time Apart [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Do-Over, Fate, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 10,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22375795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnOfTomorrow/pseuds/DawnOfTomorrow
Summary: Victor reveals his biggest secret to Yuuri, and Yuuri realises time is a VERY strange thing indeed. Love is much simpler, and thankfully, they’re both more interested in love than they are in time. Happy endings are what you make of them, and neither Victor nor Yuuri are going to waste their chance at happiness.Final part of the ‘A Time Apart’ series.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: A Time Apart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605760
Comments: 119
Kudos: 296





	1. Chapter 1

Sitting in the hotel room next to Victor was surreal for so many reasons. The biggest one was, of course, the conversation they were having. Yuuri’s mind was spinning, racing out of control when Victor brought it to a still stand with one sentence.

“I’m talking about magic, Yuuri.”

Magic. The same thing he’d asked Victor about earlier tonight. He had no idea whether it was actually magic that had caused his time jump, or whether it was something else entirely, but for Victor to now throw the word back at him…

Yuuri took a deep breath.

“Magic… like the magic that brought me here?”

Victor hummed contemplatively.

“Yes… and no.”

He waited for the other man to go on, desperate to hear what he had to say, holding on to the hope that Victor would give him some sort of… explanation. Something he could understand, something that would fix the inferno within him.

“You see, Yuuri when I was 16, I died once.”

“W-What?”

“Mhm. I drowned. I went skating on a lake in Switzerland, and although the ice was thick, I somehow broke in. I went under, and I drowned. I could feel myself die, and I knew there wasn’t anyone there to save me, because nobody even knew where I was.”

Yuuri shifted on the bed until he was facing Victor.

“I remember holding my breath, trying to break the ice, but there was nothing I could do. I passed out… and I knew that I died. Except…”

“Except?”

Victor sighed.

“Except I didn’t die. I woke up on the edge of the lake. Two days later, to be precise. Completely dry, very much alive and uninjured. My coach had gone nearly mad with worry, so I spun him a story about a dalliance with a local boy. He was angry but he let it go after a while.”

“So… for those two days… where were you?”

“Mh, that’s the thing, you see. I was just getting sick of skating, for the first time. I didn’t love it anymore. I didn’t even want to become a professional skater, really, at that point. I was just good at it. So when I died, I thought to myself ‘Oh… at least now the pressure is gone.’”

Yuuri nodded, his heart racing in his chest.

“Well, those two days, in between? I spent them somewhere else. Or maybe… somewhen else? I don’t know. Before I woke up on the lakeside, I woke up somewhere else.”

“Okay…?”

Quite suddenly, Victor reached out and grabbed his hands. His hold was a little too tight, but Yuuri understood the urge to hold on – he felt it too.

“I woke up on a couch, in a house, I didn’t recognise. At first, I thought someone saved me or something, but then I looked around. Everything was in Russian. The magazines, the books. There were a few of what I thought were Chinese ones as well. I’m… beginning to think they were Japanese instead.”

Yuuri was fairly certain he wasn’t breathing anymore.

“I wandered around the house. There were two poodles that seemed to know me, even though I didn’t know them. Then, I found something even weirder – a photo album. I looked inside because I was curious, and there I was… me and someone else. A man. I was… older. My hair was short. And me and this man… there were photos from everywhere. Around the world. Years and years of photos.”

“In… an album?” Yuuri asked, breathless.

“Yes. A blue album with-”

“White piping around the edges?”

Victor nodded slowly.


	2. Chapter 2

“Yes. I realised something was going on. That’s when I realised… that my hair WAS short. I ran to the bathroom and saw that I was… well, that I was old. Older. Much older. I was panicking… until I heard the door open, and someone call out to me.”

Yuuri’s grip on Victor’s hands tightened.

“It was the man in the photos. He’d come home – presumably. He was happily chatting away, greeted the dogs, kissed me. I watched him make us dinner. It was… it was the most domestic thing I’d ever experienced. I was terrified at first. I was worried I’d get found out, that the man… my husband would realise something was wrong.”

Yuuri gulped, hanging on Victor’s every word.

“But… he didn’t. He asked me how my day was, we had dinner together. Watched a movie. Some film I’d never seen before, but according to him I really liked. I… I looked around more. The dates of things, they were way off. I was years and years into the future. There were magazines from 2026. I didn’t know what else to do, so I played along.”

He nodded, urging the man to go on. He needed to hear more, needed to hear everything.

“I said that I’d been looking at the pictures. My husband, he was happy to go through them with me. He told me about what happened in many of them. The wedding. The honeymoon. The skating… even the injuries. There was a photo with him in a cast.”

“… With an awful tiger drawn on it.”

“… Is that what that thing was? I couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah. Yuri Plisetsky drew it on for me.”

“…Ah. Well, I figured it out, peace by peace. I died… and somehow went to the future. And Yuuri, it was the most amazing thing I’d ever witnessed. It was… everything I could want in life. A beautiful, loving husband. Dogs. Just… it was perfect. Him and I, we went to bed. I, erm, sort of lost my virginity to him? I don’t know if it even counts, but I did.”

Yuuri felt himself blushing.

“We spent the entire next day together. It was wonderful. I asked more and more and more about how him and I met. How we got together. I don’t know if I made him suspicious, but I needed to know. Yuuri, I was so happy. I wanted NOTHING more than to stay there, to live THAT life. It was so much better than my own. But then… I went to sleep again. And I woke back up…”

“By the lake.”

“Yes.”

Victor swallowed with visible difficulty.

“There was… I could remember. Some of it, not all. All the things we did together, the things he told me about. But not… I couldn’t remember his face, or his name. The most important parts, and I couldn’t remember them. I woke up by the lake, and all I wanted to do was throw myself back into it. I really thought about it, but I couldn’t.”

He nodded – he understood that urge, had felt it when he’d looked at the river that very night.

“At that lakeside, I realised something. That glimpse into the future I got? I realised that it… hadn’t happened yet. That it could. That I could make it happen. I didn’t know everything, but I knew enough. That glimpse… it was what motivated me to keep skating. I put everything I had into that dream. Years of hard work, because I wanted to get to that point. No... I knew I HAD to get to that point.”

The other man laughed weakly.

“I knew that I met that man skating, and that he was proud of defeating me. So… I made myself the best. I made it so that nobody would be able to beat me… except for him. Eventually. That was… what I hoped. Along the way, things got a little fuzzy. I lost sight of things, from time to time. It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. For a while I treated it as a dream, because it couldn’t be real, right?”

“No… no, it couldn’t. Except…”

“Exactly. ‘Except’. And then, so many years later, there was someone who beat me. Not… not the way my husband told me, but he BEAT me. I thought for sure that… well, I thought maybe I hadn’t been good enough, because it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to. Not quite. But despite that, I fell in love with you anyway. I didn’t really care about the dream anymore. A faceless man from when I was a teenager or the wonderful person that crashed into my life and made everything better? No competition there.”

Yuuri took a shuddering breath. He knew the next part.

“I was going to forget about what happened back then. But that man, that wonderful, HORRIBLE man I fell in love with, he turned me down. And when I finally wring an explanation out of him…”

“You hear things you already knew. Heard about, before.”

“Yes.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Things that I didn’t know were real. Things someone whose face I couldn’t remember told me about in a future that hadn’t happened… maybe never would.”

“But they did. I don’t… I don’t remember the day you described. Not specifically. There were a lot of days like that though. My Victor, he loved looking at those pictures. We often did, together. That house… it’s the one I told you about. The one we bought together.”

“Yuuri, I-”

“You’ve… been to our future?”

“I think so. I don’t have any other explanation. I just didn’t put it together, because…”

“Because I kept it secret from you.”

“Yes. Do we really… There was a photo of us in a pink convertible?”

Despite himself, Yuuri laughed.

“That was your 34th birthday. You insisted on an outrageous car, so we went to Chicago and rented that thing.”

“I didn’t know I liked cars. Not until…”

“… Until I took you to that museum? In… this time.”

“Yeah.”

Yuuri felt hot tears sliding down his cheeks.

“What else? I want… to know what else.”

“There was… it was summer, I think? There were flowers outside the window. I never actually left the house. I had no reason to. Everything I wanted was inside of it.”

“E-Everything…”

He sobbed quietly, his feelings overwhelming him yet again.

“Y-Yuuri? What is it? What did I say?”

“You? Nothing. Or maybe… I don’t know? But whining about not wanting to go inside, about everything you want being inside? That… my Victor would say that all the time. It’s… it’s no surprise you didn’t make… him, make me suspicious. You… must have said the same things my Victor did.”

“How is that possible?”

He snorted, reaching for the tissues.

“How is ANY of this possible?”

“… I guess. Uhm… I did the dishes after you cooked. You helped me dry them off. That’s when I realised I was wearing a ring. I hadn’t really noticed it before. I didn’t ask… who proposed?”

“Me. I did. In Barcelona, a year from now. Before my first Grand Prix Silver.”

“Wow…”

“So all this time, you knew… you were waiting for us to meet?”

“I suppose so. I didn’t know it was you, but yes.”

Yuuri reached out, his fingers brushing over Victor’s cheek as if it was the first time he touched him.

Victor leaned into his touch as if it wasn’t the first, but the thousandth time he’d done it.

He flung himself forward into Victor’s arms, knocking them both off the bed. They went down with a thud, pain shooting through his side. Victor’s grunt revealed that he’d fallen uncomfortably as well, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered, other than being in the other man’s arms.

Who cared if it was for the first time or the thousandth?

It was Victor.

Eventually, he drew back – he had no idea how much time had passed. A look at his partner’s face revealed that Victor was as worn out emotionally as he was.

“Yuuri, will you… stay with me tonight?”

The Russian sighed.

“Just to sleep. I promise. I just…”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Agreeing to Victor’s request was the easiest thing in the world.

That said, they ended up doing it the other way around. Since they were already in Yuuri’s room, Victor decided to stay there. Yuuri lent him a shirt to sleep in, and they fell asleep, side by side.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the first time that Yuuri had voluntarily slept by Victor’s side… and it was the first time since he’d woken up as his younger self that he’d had a dream as vivid as the one he experienced.

It was surreal at first, just an upside-down landscape, trees instead of clouds and blue grass where the sky should be. Then… then it shifted, and Yuuri was floating downwards towards a lake. He’d never been there, but it was stunning. It was so clear he could see deeper than he thought possible – made all the more amazing by the fact that it was frozen, as he discovered when he landed on the ice.

He landed in the middle of the lake, his bare feet unbothered by the ice, even though he could feel it radiate cold. Taking a few steps forward, he realised that he wasn’t alone – there was someone with him.

A young woman, probably. He could see her skating on the ice in the distance, long silver hair flowing in the soft breeze. She was beautiful to watch, even though she only skated simple circles for a bit.

Eventually, she stopped and spun around – looking directly at Yuuri. A second later she was gone. Yuuri was running towards her before he knew what was going on. His feet carried him over the ice, faster and faster, even though he wasn’t the one making the decisions to move.

He looked around – the woman was nowhere to be seen. All there was, was unmarred ice, not even the marks of her skates to be seen. Then, something moved in the corner of his eyes and he spun around. To his shock, he spotted that same head of silver hair… under the ice.

He also discovered that it wasn’t a woman, but rather a man and that he was trapped. There was no hole in the ice anywhere, but he could see the man frantically trying to scramble out from the cold water.

Yuuri wanted to help, but as much as he pounded his fists against the ice, he couldn’t break through. He couldn’t even mark the surface – not at all.

The solution came to him just as the man’s eyes slipped shut and he stopped struggling.

It was a dream. Yuuri knew it was a dream.

Stretching out his left arm, he was relieved to find that it went straight through the ice, and that he could grab the other man easily. He pulled him up and out, struggling a little under his weight. He was heavy… and wet.

At least, until Yuuri had him slung over his shoulder. Quite suddenly, he was as light as air again and floating towards the edge of the lake. He dropped the man off there, and when he turned to look back at the lake, he instead found himself standing in a room – a living room.

His living room. He could see his husband on the couch, watching an old Avengers movie. Before he could so much as reach out, a forceful blow struck him in the stomach, knocking him backwards… through the wall, through a lot of walls.

He hit the ice hard, sliding outwards and scrambling up even as he did. He instinctively knew that it was the middle of a performance and that he needed to continue. Even if he’d already fallen too many times. Even if he knew he was coming in last. Even if…

He blinked and found himself sitting on a mat on a floor, surrounded by puppies. Victor was there too, holding one of them out – his favourite.

Yuuri felt himself falling backwards – the scene changes were happening faster and faster, mere moments before he would slip to a new part of it.

He woke up with a hoarse cry, breath heaving, and his heart racing as fast as it would go. After blinking a few times, he found that he was where he’d fallen asleep – next to Victor, in the hotel at World’s.

Relieved, he relaxed a little against the pillow.

“Mh? Yuuri?” A sleepy Victor mumbled.

“It’s nothing. I just had a dream. A weird one.”

To his surprise, Victor sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“I did too… a nightmare.”

“W-What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

The Russian gave a slow nod.

“I think I watched you die? It started with me standing next to a burning car. You were… passed out, I think. I tried to help you but I couldn’t. It was… horrible.”

Yuuri gasped weakly.

“I… me too? In my dream, I was watching you skate on a lake until you went under the ice. I pulled you out and put you by the lakeside. Then the scene changed and…”

“For me, it was the living room of that house? I was watching a movie, you were doing the dishes.”

He weakly reached for Victor’s hand in the dark and sat up next to him.

“After that was a performance. Of… me. I fell. A lot.”

“Yeah I know, I watched you. I was heart-broken that you weren’t doing as well as you should have. Next was… puppies? You had the cutest one on your lap and I tried to show you another, and then…”

“So… did we have the same dream?”

“Then we were in an airport, in Thailand, I think. Sipping coffee.”

“Victor… did we really have the same dream? How is that possible?”

“I have absolutely no idea. All of that… aren’t those things that really happened?”

Yuuri groaned.

“Yes but… only to one of us? Always just one of us. I remember picking out puppies, and the performance…”

Victor nodded.

“This is…strange. Flashbacks to things that didn’t really happen… what do you think it means?”

He shrugged – he had no more of a clue than Victor did, all things considered.

“Yuuri... do you think it’s the same magic that did this to us in the first place?”

“I mean… probably, but why?”


	5. Chapter 5

Victor reached over and turned the bedside table lamp on.

“Maybe it wants something from us.”

“From… but what?”

Victor huffed.

“I don’t know, Yuuri! We don’t even know if it is magic.”

He huffed, falling back into the bed and rubbing his eyes.

“Why can’t life ever be easy?”

Victor sighed in agreement and laid back down as well.

“Yuuri… I’m too wound up to sleep more.”

“Mh, me too.”

“Do you want to… would you like to tell me about… me?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Hm, how about you tell me what your version of me and, well, me, have in common?”

Yuuri snickered quietly.

“Well, you have the same interests, of course. You’re both funny. Gorgeous. Dramatic. Petty. Competitive…”

Victor mock gasped.

“ _Dramatic_? Why I never!”

Yuuri paused for a long moment, unsure how to continue.

“You sound like you really loved… him.” Victor quietly observed.

Yuuri’s reaction was instant.

“Of course I did. It’s Victor.”

His words registered a second after he spoke them… and after Victor gave him a long-suffering look.

“I’m Victor too, you know?”

Nodding slowly, he met the other man’s eyes.

Baby blue, the same colour he saw first thing when he woke up, every morning. He missed it.

“Yuuri, can I kiss you?”

The words were merely a whisper between them. Yuuri knew he should have said no. He knew he should. It wasn’t fair to this Victor, or to himself.

Yuuri didn’t say no.

A moment later, Victor leaned closer, blue eyes fluttering shut as he pressed their lips together. Unlike the previous time, it wasn’t forceful, it wasn’t fast… it was sweet. Slow. They kissed for what felt like an eternity… and ultimately it was Victor that drew back with a happy sigh.

“That was nice.”

“Mh.”

It really had been nice… it would have been nicer without the guilt though.

“Do you feel guilty?”

Wincing at how transparent he was apparently being, he nodded.

“Don’t. I don’t think your Victor would mind this at all.”

“How can you be sure?”

The other man snorted.

Oh.

Right.

“Because if it was me, and if my soulmate woke up in another world and, out of the seven billion people on the planet chose me AGAIN, even though they already know all my stupid little flaws, I wouldn’t be upset, I would be ecstatic.”

“But-”

“No buts. Do you really think any version of me would rather you be alone than with, well, a version of me?”

That… was an unfair question.

“Well, I mean…”

“What about you? If it was me. Would you rather I stay alone in that other universe or be with you again?”

“That’s not fair. Of course I’d want you to be happy.”

“And yet you think it would be different for me? Really?”

He opened his mouth to insist that it WAS different, but then he thought better of it. His Victor… he had gone through extraordinary lengths to make him happy. He’d come out of retirement. He’d choreographed him entire performances to cheer him up in the middle of a slump. He’d tried to cook him dinner many times, despite his complete inability to even hold a ladle correctly.

Yuuri felt a tear trickle down his cheek.

“I feel like I’m betraying him.” He admitted quietly.

“Yuuri… I can’t make this decision for you, but have you considered that maybe… maybe this is what the magic might want from us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t it seem like everything that has happened so far happened to steer us towards each other? Me seeing your future. You being thrown back here and defeating me?”

Yuuri gulped.

“So… you think that my… first life happened to make this possible?”

Victor gave a helpless shrug.

“Maybe not that, but everything that happened… maybe fate decided it was too soon for you to die. That there was more that needed to happen.”

“But… why? Why are we so important?”

The Russian huffed.

“Well I don’t know about me, but you’re the most important person in the world.”

“Victor!”

“Look, Yuuri, I have no clue about any of this. I just know that it seems as if whatever did this to us is trying to push us together, you know?”

Yuuri looked at the other man for a long moment.

“No, I don’t think that’s right. I think we would find our way to each other in any timeline, no matter what.”

To his surprise, the other man’s cheeks coloured a brilliant shade of red, his eyes wide open, mouth forming the cutest little ‘o’-shape.

“Yuuuri! So romantic!”

“N-No! I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…”

“I know.”

Victor leaned forwards and kissed him again.


	6. Chapter 6

It was all getting a bit much for Yuuri.

Victor seemed to sense it and backed off. It was a relief – he had no clue how to express what he was feeling anyway.

“Victor… I’m confused. What do we do now? Where do we… go from here?”

The Russian chuckled.

“It’s all a mess, isn’t it? Truth be told, I have no idea. What do you think? I mean, you are the older one here, right?”

Yuuri gave him a withering glare.

“That’s not funny.”

“No, not at all. I’m sorry. I’m as lost as you are.”

“Mh.”

“What do you want to do, Yuuri? It seems… we are here to stay. In this reality, this time. I don’t know whether it’s even the same one we started out in…” Victor trailed off and frowned.

Yuuri shivered.

“Doesn’t it feel so final?” The Russian continued after a few moments.

Yuuri hadn’t thought so – not until Victor spoke the words, at least.

“Do you think we’ve… run out of magic then?”

“What if the magic gave us second chances? You usually only get one of those.”

“Okay, but a second chance for what?”

“That, my Yuuri, I don’t know.”

He rolled over in the bed and groaned into the pillow. At the end of the day, neither of them knew anything, other than that what they had experienced wasn’t normal. No why, no how, no nothing.

“We have no way of finding out either, do we?” He mumbled.

“Well, not unless you want to… I mean, the magic started when we died, right?”

Yuuri shot up and around, looking at the other man. He had to be wrong – Victor couldn’t be suggesting what he was suggesting… right?

“You mean…”

“Oh, well, I mean… not really. Of course not. But it’s the only thing we know triggers it? The magic?”

Yuuri was about to open his mouth to confirm that, and to call Victor an idiot for even thinking about death as an option when something occurred to him.

A faint connection he hadn’t made before – and that he wasn’t sure he could make even now.

“There is something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Another thing we know the magic did. Or does. Whatever.”

Victor perked up immediately.

“What’s that?”

Yuuri took a deep breath.

“It pushes us towards each other, right? Your death, mine, last night’s dream… it pointed us closer to each other. So, if we separate…”

“You want to split up?”

A painful twinge in his gut very much resounded with the upset note in Victor’s voice. He considered denying it, but thought better of it.

“No. Not really. But if… if we split up, go as far as possible from each other, maybe the magic will push us together again. Maybe it will give us more clues. You know…?”

Victor nodded slowly, before running both hands through his hair with a groan.

“Yeah. Yes. I see what you mean. I think… it could work? Maybe? How did you want to do this then?”

“Well… it’s actually perfect. I leave for Detroit tomorrow morning. Well, in a few hours, really.”

“And I’m headed home to St. Petersburg.”

“Yes.”

“So we… go home? And then just…”

“Stay apart and see what happens.”

He did his best to ignore the unpleasant feeling that even the idea of doing so caused.

“And if… nothing happens?”

“Then… then we cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Yuuri found himself wrapped in a warm hug, Victor’s arms wrapped around him securely. It was… nice. He held on to the other man, not at all liking the idea of separating. For what it was worth, even if this wasn’t the man he’d made all of those memories with, it was still someone he cared for very dearly, and he didn’t want to lose him.

Couldn’t stand the thought of it, actually.

“So… we…”

“Separate. As little contact as possible. Just… we only talk if something relating to the magic happens.”

“Until when?”

Yuuri swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Maybe… a month?”

“A month.”

“Yeah. If by then…”

“Okay. That makes sense. In that case… I should go? Probably.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

He could hardly credit how slowly Victor moved in collecting his few things and leaving his room. It felt surreal, in the dimly lit hallway only a few windows along the way breaking up the boring yellow wallpaper.

“I love you, Yuuri.” There were tears brimming in Victor’s eyes as he whispered quietly in Russian. Yuuri said nothing – he had no idea what words would have come out of his mouth if he opened it.

Watching Victor’s back walk away was… well, one of the hardest things he’d ever done. In either life.

It made no real sense, but by the time the elevator closed behind him, Yuuri felt a sense of… loneliness he hadn’t expected.

Going back into his room, he laid down again, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to get another wink of sleep that night.


	7. Chapter 7

Nor did he get any sleep the next night, or the night after that. By the time he was back in Detroit, he felt like a walking zombie. Seeing Phichit again, going back to training… it all felt grey.

More so than it had before even, which was a strange realisation. Yuuri now missed two Victors – not in the same way, but not in an entirely different way either.

Phichit obviously noticed something was wrong. He did his best to cheer Yuuri up – hamsters, and pizza and movie marathons galore. Much as he appreciated his young friend’s enthusiasm, he would have preferred his older self. The Phichit from his time was a lot better at… reading people.

Not that his younger self wasn’t trying… it just wasn’t what Yuuri needed. To be fair, what he needed was nothing that the Thai skater could give him anyway – he needed to go back to Victor.

The separation was making him nearly physically ill – enough so that he half-suspected the magic to be responsible for it. The temptation to pick up the phone, to at least call or text… but then, he had no idea if it was only him who was sick. The Russian had certainly seemed to have been faring a little better than Yuuri had been.

Unless… unless he had been hiding his own pain too.

Groaning, he rolled over again and shuffled to get comfortable. Another night of endless tossing, interspersed with restless naps.

At least, that was what he expected.

What he got was… somewhat different.

For the first night in a week, Yuuri fell asleep as soon as he allowed himself to relax against his pillow.

He didn’t dream.

Nothing at all, not even nightmares.

Just… darkness until he woke up. Feeling well-rested for once was so unfamiliar it took him a few moments to orient himself properly. It took him another few moments to realise just HOW comfortable he was.

His college dorm bed just wasn’t that comfortable.

Or that big.

Squinting around himself, he realised fairly quickly that he wasn’t anywhere near where he fell asleep. He did, however, know where he had woken up – VICTOR’S flat.

The comfortable bed was the same one he’d slept in many times.

That was… unexpected.

After taking a few breaths to calm himself down, Yuuri investigated the bedside table. Nothing. None of the items that he’d put on his own table were there. That included his phone and his glasses – both things he needed.

The only things he had were the clothes he’d fallen asleep in… and those clothes consisted entirely of a pair of boxers. Also not ideal.

Thankfully, he knew exactly where Victor kept his clothes. He fished out something that vaguely fit him and stumbled to the living room. The flat was empty – not surprising. A glance outside revealed that it was early in the afternoon.

That meant… the rink. Victor was at the rink.

And Yuuri had no shoes that fit him, nor a way to contact Victor.

Cursing under his breath, he looked around for a different solution. He found it in the form of a computer – a password-protected computer.

He tried variations of Makka, of things he’d seen his Victor use. The solution turned out to be a little different than he expected.

The password was ‘Katsuki-Nikiforov’.


	8. Chapter 8

Logged in, Yuuri logged into his Skype. He tried dialling Victor’s number – no response. Not surprising if he was on the ice. Next was Yakov – the man hadn’t changed his number in thirty or so years, he knew, so he could dial it from memory.

Yakov picked up on the second ring.

Prepared for an awkward call, Yuuri switched to Russian.

“Mr. Feltsman? This is Yuuri Katsuki speaking. I need to talk to Victor for a minute. Is he available?”

“Katsuki? What’s this about? You haven’t been in contact, as I understand. Vitya has been moping.”

“Yes, well, there is a reason for that. I… really need to speak to him. Please.”

“… Fine. Give me a minute. He has your number, yes?”

“Have him call this number please.”

“Alright.”

“Thank yo-”

Yakov had already hung up.

Well then.

Yuuri waited, semi-patiently until the laptop showed another call. It was… well, less than two minutes. Yuuri was impressed.

“Hi, Victor.” He greeted the other man, feeling a little breathless.

“Yuuri! What’s happened? Is something wrong? You said a month… did something happen?”

Relief swept over him like a wave, a tear spilling down his cheek.

“Well… you’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“I’m in Russia.”

“What? When did your plane land? Wha- Why?”

Yuuri laughed.

“Well, I wasn’t on a plane. It’s the magic. It brought me here. I went to bed in my dorm and woke up in your bed. About… ten minutes ago.”

“Oh god. You’re…. you’re at my flat?”

“…Yes?”

“Uh, please don’t go anywhere. I will be there… like now. Almost… now. I’m leaving.”

Victor had hung up before Yuuri could even begin to explain his problems. He took a deep breath, preparing himself. It was only a few minutes from the rink, and if Victor felt anything like he did, he would be sprinting the entire way.

Yuuri did his best not to pace up and down the flat – he wouldn’t have to wait long, he knew.

Indeed, the door banged open within minutes, and Yuuri found himself tackled to the floor, Victor holding him.

Yuuri recognised that moment. It had happened before… except it had been on the ice, after a skate.

The feeling was the same.

Victor cupped the back of his head so he wouldn’t hurt himself, their lips slotted together perfectly. They hit the ground hard, maybe not as hard as the first time around… and Yuuri found himself reacting the same way. He wrapped his arms around Victor, kissed back and sighed contentedly when the contact broke.

For a short, glorious moment, everything in the world was okay again.

Then… then Victor scrambled off him, apologising, blushing… and the world came crashing back in.

He accepted Victor’s hand up.

“I can’t believe you’re here!”

“Mh, me too. I need your help, I-”

“Yuuri, where are your glasses?”

He sighed.

“In Detroit. Along with my shoes and clothes.”

“Wait… what?”

“Whatever transported me here didn’t bring any of my things. Which is where needing your help comes in…”

“But what about that?”

To his surprise, Victor stepped past him into the kitchen – well, to the wall hanger there. He picked up something from there and handed it over. Yuuri recognised it of course – his bag. Hung in the same spot as it always was.

The place he hung the bag when he… came home.

Oh.


	9. Chapter 9

Inside the bag, he found what he needed – some of it, at least. His passport, his phone, his glasses.

Sadly, no clothes – that, however, was more easily solved. He could borrow from Victor – while they didn’t share the same shoe size, the Russian was all too happy to go out and pick him up a few pairs so he could at least leave the flat.

That left Yuuri with damage control – he had to explain to Phichit and Celestino how and why he had disappeared in the middle of the night. It was… awkward to say the least. Phichit was excited, but Celestino wasn’t happy.

Well, to be fair, Yuuri hadn’t exactly meant to teleport across the world… though sitting on the couch, his knee brushing against Victor’s thigh, he couldn’t pretend he minded either.

After an early lunch, they sat down… to talk. Really talk. Finally.

“How are you? How have you been?” Victor eventually started, after a long and fairly uncomfortable silence.

“I’m… better. What about you?”

“It’s been tough. I didn’t expect to miss you as much as I did. Everything was so… it was like it was before you. When I thought there was no hope.”

Yuuri’s head snapped up at that. He hadn’t been familiar with the feelings he’d experienced, but from what the other man described… Yuuri might have just felt a taste of Victor’s depression.

It was like a punch to the gut. Yuuri had barely been able to feed himself, yet Victor had been a world champ for years while feeling like that. It was… a lot to take in.

“Yuuri?”

“Mh? Oh, ‘m sorry. I was just thinking about something. What did you say?”

“I said that I’m so glad to see you again.”

“Yes… me too. It’s been tough.”

“It has. And apparently, the magic decided to correct it.”

“Yeah. And in such a way as well… it’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

Victor nodded.

“I agree, and I know a thing or two about drama.”

Yuuri grinned.

“True. So… it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The magic wants us together.”

“Yes, it is. I’m guessing if we separate again, the same thing will happen.”

“Probably. Yuuri… I’m sorry all of this is happening.”

“It’s… it’s okay. I’m glad I’m not in this alone.”

“Me too.”

When Victor reached out to take his hand a moment later, he readily let him. The contact was comforting if nothing else.

“Victor?”

“Mh?”

“Where is Makka? Is she with a sitter?”

“Hm? No, she should be in the bedroom. I’m surprised she wasn’t here to greet me. Then again, I was distracted.”

Yuuri shot up from the couch and dashed to the bedroom.

“Makka? Makkachin!”

He looked around frantically, investigating the spots he knew the poodle liked to sleep. Nothing. She was nowhere to be found. Not in the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. He even dashed down the hall – there was no way the dog could have gotten into the staircase as it had a doorknob that needed to be turned, and while Makka was smart, she didn’t know how to operate the elevator.

“Yuuri! She’s nowhere! Where... where could she have gone? Detroit? Did you swap places maybe?”

“What? No… no, Phichit would have said. I… I have no idea where she could be. I’m so sorry Victor. We have to go looking for her… where do you normally walk her?”

It broke Yuuri’s heart to watch Victor scramble around, desperately looking for his dog. Yuuri was scared too – Makka had never disappeared in his timeline, he had no idea where she could be.

He followed Victor, of course, along the road and the paths he walked her.

They split up by silent agreement, Yuuri combing one set of streets, Victor the other.

Nothing. By the time they met back up at the apartment door, Yuuri was tired, freezing and nearly mindless with worry… and he knew that Victor had to be a thousand times worse.

“We’ll find her. We’ll find her, I’m sure of it.”

He held the Russian, his mind scrambling for answers.

Makka was a calm dog. Well-behaved. Excitable, but smart. Smart enough to walk herself home, if ever she got lost. He refused to even consider the possibility that she may have been stolen or abducted, which meant… it meant nothing because it didn’t help.

He was sure that the dog would have gone home if she got lost somewhere, somehow.

But she wasn’t anywhere near the apartment.

She was…

“Home! Victor, I know where she is! She’s a smart dog, she must have gone home!”


	10. Chapter 10

For a few long moments, he hoped Victor would understand, when it was so… obvious. Then he realised that he had to explain more, that this was a different Victor and he didn’t know what Yuuri knew.

He had, in fact, forgotten.

Thankfully, the fourteen-minute cab ride to their goal was more than enough time to fill the other man in.

They ran the last few metres from the road up to the house – an unassuming shade of off-white that Yuuri only dimly recalled. It had been that colour before, in a fit of motivation, Victor had decided to paint it.

Yuuri had narrowly managed to talk him out of painting it the colour of Yuuri’s eyes. He did NOT want to live in a brown house, and he’d also vetoed gold… and pink. Eventually, Victor had suggested a lovely shade of robin egg blue that Yuuri had found acceptable… and so they had painted their house.

Well, they had spent about an hour trying, before leaving the job to a team of professionals that actually knew what they were doing. In 2014, however, the house had been white, and it was those white walls that Yuuri and Victor were running towards.

They didn’t have to look around for long.

Makka was napping on the top step of the house, just to the side of the main door. There were decorations there, from whoever lived at the house, but neither of the men cared. They immediately dove to hug Makka… who acted as if nothing was wrong, happily wagging her tail and licking them both.

As if nothing odd had happened. As if… she had done what she always did.

By the time they had both calmed down enough (and petted her enough) to actually, well, think again, a good amount of time had passed. Yuuri was quite relieved that nobody had come or gone in that time – they’d have struggled to explain their presence on someone else’s porch.

“Yuuri, how did you know that she would be here? Is this house…”

He nodded.

“Yes. We moved here a season after, well, this one. I thought… I thought she might have gone home.”

“But this isn’t her home…yet?”

Yuuri shrugged.

“I don’t know. Are we really still asking why?”

“Fair point. So this is…”

“It’s the house you chose. We looked at so many. This is the one you liked best. We painted it after a while.”

“Mhm… I never actually saw the outside. You know, this would look great in-”

“No.”

“Yuuri?”

“I know what you were about to suggest, and no, we are not painting it brown, or pink, or gold.”

“I wasn’t about to suggest that!” Victor pouted, his face and tone clearly revealing the fact that he had absolutely been about to suggest exactly that.

“So… Makka, is she from another time too?” The Russian continued.

Yuuri reached down to pet her as he always did.

“Maybe. She was…very excited to see me, the first time we met. Maybe she recognised me? From… her before and our now?”

“This is getting confusing. How can we tell?”

Yuuri shrugged.

“I don’t think we can. She can’t tell us and… well, is there really a difference? Does it make a difference?”

When the Russian didn’t respond, Yuuri looked up, surprised to see a somewhat unexpected expression on the man’s face.

There was surprise, a bit of annoyance, and a fair bit of pain there… and Yuuri had no idea why.

“…Victor?”


	11. Chapter 11

The Russian looked at him like that for a long time – it wasn’t often that he failed to read his husband or even this version of Victor.

This version…

The man to whom he’d just said that it didn’t matter which version of their dog they were with.

After repeatedly rejecting him for being the ‘wrong’ Victor.

Oh god, he was an idiot.

Scolding himself, he scrambled up to stand at eye-height, or at least closer to it, with the other man.

“Victor! I didn’t mean…”

“No, you did, Yuuri. It’s ok. I understand. A dog and a human aren’t the same.”

“No… no, they’re not. Victor, I… can we have this conversation inside?”

Yuuri stood and automatically reached for the door handle, before remembering that they didn’t live there – yet. Maybe never. He wasn’t entirely sure.

He listened quietly as Victor ordered them another cab. They rode back in silence, Makka between them in the small cab.

It was awkward – more than a little.

Makka was pleasantly oblivious, of course, happily wagging her tail and sniffing around the flat. She clearly wasn’t bothered to be there… nor by the mood between her humans either.

Yuuri meanwhile was squirming on the couch, well aware that Victor was deliberately avoiding a conversation by making tea behind him.

He let him, almost glad for the break to order his thoughts.

By the time Victor handed him his mug minutes later, he was… well, in a slightly better place, at least.

Blowing gently on the tea, he waited for Victor to settle by his side.

“I’m sorry, Victor. I haven’t been fair to you.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve been rude, you’ve lied to me, you’ve dismissed me and ignored me.”

Yuuri flinched with every word – Victor wasn’t often blunt like that. When he was… well, he was usually upset. And in this case, he had every reason to be. Yuuri really hadn’t treated him well.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yuuri… I understand. I’m not happy, but with the mess that our life has been… I get it. I mean, it’s been ages since I’ve even THOUGHT about skating. It’s just been about you, me, and… all of this.”

He nodded – he felt the same.

“Still, all of this doesn’t mean that I should have pushed you away like that. You know, the funny thing is… I’ve sort of done it before? In my time. I regretted it then too. It hurt us both… and now I’m making the same mistake again.”

Victor sighed.

“Not necessarily. Did you… apologise last time?”

Yuuri felt himself blushing slightly.

“Well… no? Sort of? I choreographed a program to get the message across, and half a season later, I eventually did.”

“Mh, sounds like this is definitely an improvement then.”

He grunted – whether in agreement or not, he wasn’t sure himself.

“I hate how all of this is happening.” He eventually blurted out, the words surprising even himself.

“You mean… with me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s definitive.”

“I feel like I don’t have a choice here, and I don’t like it.”

The Russian sipped some more of his tea.

“No choice?”

“Well, we… chose to be apart. The magic took that from us. It all but forced us together. It doesn’t feel like I got to choose. In my timeline… it was me who made those choices.”

Victor nodded slowly.

“I know a little bit about that. People have been making decisions for me for a long time. I never really minded too much, but… I get it. Choosing for myself, choosing you, it felt fantastic.”

Yuuri flushed a little.

“In my time… I chose my Victor. I chose our life together.”

“And here you feel you can’t?”

“I got teleported halfway across the world for choosing to leave you.”

“But… wasn’t that your choice too?”

His head snapped up almost involuntarily.

“…What?”

Victor sighed into his cup.

“Yuuri… I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent the last week wanting nothing more than for you to be by my side again. What about you?”

He opened his mouth to deny it, to remind the Russian that he loved his own Victor and not him… but no words would come out of his mouth.

He HAD missed Victor. He HAD wanted to be with him again. He HAD suffered from the separation. A lot, actually. Was he really about to lie about that?

“I’ve missed you. But… isn’t that just because of the magic?”

Victor huffed.

“I doubt it. I mean, I fell in love with you without having any idea that you were the man from… when I was younger. I don’t think the magic influences how we feel.”

“So then…”

“I think if you really didn’t want to be here, Yuuri, you wouldn’t be.”

Oh.

That was…

Yuuri took a deep breath.

“And Makka?”

“Well… we know the magic is drawing us together. Maybe it’s pushing us towards that house as well? It had a for sale sign up.”

“Did it? I didn’t notice.”

“Mh. Do you remember what I said about the two days I spent in our future?”

Yuuri nodded weakly, too caught up in his own swirling thoughts to really pay too much attention.

“What if that’s the explanation, Yuuri?!”


	12. Chapter 12

“Huh?”

“I told you before. Those two days were all I wanted in life. Peacefully living there, with you. What about you? Were you happy in that house, with your Victor?”

“Of course. It was the happiest time of my life.”

Silence fell between them.

It took Yuuri a remarkably long time to figure out what Victor was trying to tell him. When the penny dropped… it felt almost like a revelation.

“So… you think that’s the goal here? Of the magic? To bring us both to that moment?”

Victor shrugged.

“It makes the most sense if you ask me.”

It did make sense – a frightening amount of it, actually.

“And the magic thinks that’s… what we both want?” He asked, carefully studying Victor’s face for a reaction.

“It’s what I’ve wanted for the last decade of my life, Yuuri.”

“And for me… I’ve wanted to go back to that time since I first woke up in this reality.”

“Well, there you have it then. You can’t go back… but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be our future… together.”

He didn’t miss the way Victor clenched his cup just a little bit harder as he spoke.

“But what about-”

“Your Victor? Yuuri, I’ve told you before. I know, without a doubt, that he would want you to be happy. I mean… he’s me. A version of me. I’m a version of him. Who cares?”

Yuuri did.

“You have some of those memories too now.”

“Yeah. I do. Do you think it’ll be more over time? If not… Yuuri Katsuki, I love you. If those memories are so precious to you, then experience them with me again. It’s the perfect solution, right? I get to experience them for the first time, and you get to relive them.”

“But things are already different…”

Victor chuckled.

“So? That just makes it more interesting! What happened next, in your timeline?”

“Well… you came to Hasetsu to be my coach for the next season.”

He conveniently neglected to mention the, well, circumstances of this decision.

“Wow! Me, your coach? Hm… that won’t work now, you’re better than me. So how about you stay here and be my coach?”

The joyful enthusiasm in the man’s tone made Yuuri smile softly.

“I, well… That would be different, wouldn’t it? Not the same?”

“Well, I’d be happy to play at being your coach instead, but in your reality, you weren’t the better skater… I’m guessing.”

He groaned.

“Not for a few years, no.”

“So, you had to work hard to defeat me?”

“Of course. You’re Victor Nikiforov.”

“And YOU are Yuuri Katsuki. Reigning world champ. Who better to be my coach? And then we can compete next season and see if you’re worth your salt as a coach.”

“Oh? So… if you don’t defeat me, I’m a bad coach… and if you do, I’m a bad skater?”

“… How was I as a coach?”

Impatient. Snarky. Petty. Demanding.

“Wonderful.”

If Victor could tell he was lying, he didn’t let on.

“I like the idea of being your coach. Though… I think I like the idea of being your student more.”

“How about the idea of being my boyfriend?” Yuuri blurted out, before slapping a hand over his mouth.

He hadn’t meant to say that… or had he?


	13. Chapter 13

“Yuuuuri! Why, that would definitely be one of my conditions if I am to hire you as a coach!”

Since, despite his hopes otherwise, the ground decided NOT to open up and swallow him, Yuuri cleared his throat and tried to change the subject.

“So… you want me to come here? Live with you… again?”

“I would love that. Something tells me you’ll fit into my life like you were made for it.”

Victor winked at him – a gesture Yuuri knew intimately, yet one that still made him blush.

“I’ll have to end my contract with Celestino… and I’ll need to tell my family.”

Neither of those seemed like insurmountable obstacles, all in all. Not… not compared to what he’d already experienced, anyway.

Yuuri leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Victor’s shoulders.

He felt safe there – like he always had.

Victor shuffled them around a little until they were more comfortably leaning together on the couch.

It was then that Yuuri… passed out.

He felt it, a moment before it happened, just like he’d felt it when he had been about to die.

Opening his eyes he was… not in the same place.

It wasn’t hard to tell, given that he was staring at… a coffin? Glancing around, he quickly realised that he was at a funeral. The people around him were… he knew them. His friends. Family. He barely spared them a glance once a head of silver hair caught his eye.

There, closest to the coffin, sat… Victor.

His Victor, he was sure of it. Somehow, he was at a funeral back in his own time. Almost definitely his own funeral.

He chose not to think about it and carefully approached Victor. He desperately wanted to call out to the other man, but he settled for something else – a hand on his shoulder. At least he tried – his fingers froze moments before he could touch the other man.

He wasn’t sure why, but no words would come out of his mouth either.

Victor reacted indeed – his head snapped around and he looked up.

He looked… right through Yuuri.

“Yura? Oh, I didn’t see you there.” Victor said, his voice quiet.

A step behind Yuuri stood their first pupil – Yuri Plisetsky. Yuuri could see that he had been crying.

“Victor. This isn’t like you.”

“I know. But… it’s Yuuri.”

“Yeah. There was nothing you could do. It was fate.”

His husband took a deep breath.

“I know Yura. I just… hope that wherever he is, he is happy.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in the afterlife _now_ , old man.”

Victor shook his head.

“No, no. I just… I want to know he’s okay. Wherever he is. Whatever happens after death.”

“I’m sure he is. Alright, that is. Maybe someday, somewhere, you two will meet again.”

“I want nothing more, Yura.”

Their student nodded and stepped away, leaving Victor to his solitude… and Yuuri. Suddenly, he could move again, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

It was a little like moving his fingers through sand – then, he made contact with Victor’s shoulder. He could feel the expensive silk of the suit under his fingers, as he clamped down hard.

The Russian under his fingers shuddered, hard.

“Yuuri?”

He could barely hear Victor whisper under his breath. Tears flowing down his face, he leaned down to whisper into the ear of his husband. There was really only one thing he wanted to say to the other man.

“Victor… I’m okay. I'm happy. I love you.”

As soon as he’d finished speaking, his fingers closed through air and the scene he had seen faded to black… just like before.

This time, he knew where he was going to wake up.


	14. Chapter 14

Indeed, when he woke with a gasp, he found himself staring at a familiar ceiling – the one in Victor’s flat. He had a splitting headache but forced himself to lean up with a groan.

Victor was by his side in a heartbeat.

“Yuuri! Oh my god! You’re okay! I was just about to call you an ambulance!”

“I… passed out?”

“Yes, you did. I was terrified!”

He sighed.

“It’s okay, I’m fine. I’m just fine. Sorry to scare you.”

“No, I’m just glad nothing happened. Well… did something happen?”

“It was the magic again. Although… I think we should call it fate, not magic.”

“Fate? Yuuri… you were passed out for just a few moments. What did you experience in those few seconds?”

“It… was a little longer for me. I went back to my own timeline. I… was at my funeral?”

He found himself wrapped in a near crushing hug a second later.

“Oh no… my Yuuri, I’m so sorry. It must have been horrible! Is there something I can do to make it better?”

“No, no, Victor! It’s fine. Really, I’m fine. It’s… I needed to see it. It was good that I went. Necessary.”

“Okay?”

“I, uhm, I saw my Victor. And… the people I loved. My friends, family. Students. Everyone.”

“Okay…?”

Yuuri found himself struggling to recount what happened – it wasn’t that he didn’t remember, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words.

“Yuuri… what did you see?”

He looked up into Victor’s eyes – familiar, beautiful blue, tinged with worry, fear and love. He reached up and pulled the taller man down, pressing their lips together in a gentle, chaste kiss.

“I saw… something I needed. We needed. And them. Him. Everyone, I think.” He said, after pulling back and releasing Victor from his hold.

“Yuuri… what did you find?”

“Closure.”


	15. Epilogue

Turning his life upside down for Victor Nikiforov had been easier than he’d expected. Of course, the fact that it was only sort of his life had helped… as had the fact that he had years of experience in dealing with and playing along with them.

It had taken him two months to complete his move to St. Petersburg, and to Victor’s little flat. The Russian had been right – he fit right in. And Victor… Victor fit into his life as well as he fit into his.

Fate.

That’s what Yuri Plisetsky had called it, and it really did fit the force that was determined to keep them together.

They hadn’t seen any more of it, not since Yuuri’s visit to his funeral.

That was… good. It made it a little easier to turn their lives into something… normal. It allowed them to focus on each other, and on skating. They had arrangements to make – and compromises.

Victor wanted more dogs. Yuuri wanted a bigger place than Victor’s flat first.

The compromise was easy – they put a bid on the house.

Well, two bids actually. Yuuri put in one without telling Victor… and Victor had done the same. They were accepted, naturally – though they overpaid considerably. Yuuri had made an offer for what he knew the owners would accept… and Victor had wildly outbid him, just to make sure nobody else would get it.

Yuuri would have been mad if he hadn’t been laughing so hard when Victor came to him with the ‘good’ news that he had bought the place, and how he’d outbid the next highest bid – Yuuri’s – by a fair bit.

They moved a month later.

Having already had and won the argument about painting the outside, Yuuri retaliated by secretly hiring a local company to paint the outside. He chose a lovely shade of pale yellow – he’d liked it as soon as he’d seen it in the catalogue.

It wasn’t the same, but he’d learned pretty quickly that that was okay.

Preferable, even.

Desperately trying to recreate things exactly was… he didn’t want to do that. Making new memories was better – for some things, at least.

Other things came naturally in the same way they had before. A water-pipe in their kitchen broke on the same day it had the first time around – Yuuri’s birthday. Having it inspected the day before didn’t stop it from happening, nor did it stop it from ruining a perfectly good set of skates and the bag they had been sitting in, there by the sink.

Other things happened differently, even without Yuuri’s interference.

His father, who had put out his back lifting a case of beer, simply… didn’t. Yuuri hadn’t even warned him – truthfully, it had been just before the next Skate America, and he’d simply forgotten.

Not that he hadn’t been happy – it had just proven what he already suspected: That his second life and his first one weren’t meant to be identical.

All the important parts were there – Victor, and him, his family, his friends, their skating…

Yuuri was happy.

Some days, he almost felt TOO happy.

Luckily enough, Victor was all too happy to remind him that he deserved happiness, that they both did.

Yuuri did his fair share of reminding Victor as well – and he thanked fate every day that the second time around, he got to help Victor’s suffering sooner, that the other man hadn’t been alone for as long as he had. Yuuri had certainly gained a better understanding of how Victor had felt in that week apart, and that made it all the easier to be there for him when he needed it.

Not that that was often – though, he didn’t take too kindly to Yuuri winning the Barcelona Grand Prix the next season.

Yuuri had fully intended to keep his original promise – to propose and to marry Victor after winning gold.

The other man got there first. The second time around, he was the one to propose to Yuuri.

They still got married in Hasetsu – Victor LOVED it there. Probably more so than he had the first time around. Enough, actually, to buy up a holiday home there. Yuuri didn’t protest, of course – he enjoyed spending more time with his family.

With Victor.

His Victor.

Yuuri and Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov.

It was meant to be after all.


End file.
